Women in American politics continuously deal with sexist barriers. Another example of this was recently seen in Arizona.

Athena Salman is an accomplished organizer and activist who is running for the House of Representatives in Arizona. Salman graduated Magna Cum Laude from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Economics and B.S. in Political Science.

She has also written health care policy and higher education policy for Congress, worked on multiple campaigns to increase Latino voter engagement, and has worked on other projects to help lower income families. Athena is clearly an inspiring person who would be direly needed in our political system. How was she represented by the Arizona Capitol Times?

Yep. The “girlfriend” in this article headline refers to Athena. The Arizona Capitol Times article goes on to talk about how she is dating Representative Juan Mendez and fails to discuss her background or even acknowledge her as a person separate from her partner.

This is just another example of the absurdity women have to deal with when they enter the political realm. Their accomplishments are reduced to their association to a man. This is ridiculous and I’m glad to see other people call them out. Athena’s mother summed it up best:

Regardless of whom you support, your ideology or your party, to see a news organization reduce my daughter and all her accomplishments to a relationship status sets all women back.